If only..

{Fiction}

Often she would wonder why they drifted apart.. they were perfect for each other still they are at two different corners of life.. alone.. Rarely when the pain seems unbearable, she would sit in her bed or lay tossing or turning around trying to rewind her memory, she visualized the past, and felt a peculiar completeness when she lived those days again in her mind.. The first memory that she tries hard to get was his face with its boyish innocence and struggle, wondering what brought them together. They were two silent people in their adolescence, but they were friends then and nothing more. They talked and talked he about his life and she about her music. It was life to her and he loved the passion with which she spoke about it to him and so they were inseparable friends or so they thought. 

But soon they wandered off, to seek their own end of life, and at that time, the pain of missing each other just looked like the pure agony of friendship. They did not realise it then, and tossing in her bed, now she naively imagined what would have happened if only they realized it then.. and that made her heart ache more.

It took them several years to meet again, the purity of innocence wearied off them and they were adults. But she remained the same inside, the same innocent little girl, but experiencing the bliss of life, made him different and so unlike the innocent youth she adored.

She remembered the day she met him again, in the end of a concert, in which she was lucky enough to play her violin, she was one among the ten musicians who played in sync that night, but to her it was her stage, and her night. She was in the complete ecstatic moment when she met him, her delight got transmitted into him, and his eyes shone mysteriously with a powerful gleam. They met often, so very often that they felt like they lived together. He would always start his conversation with music, and she would be thrilled that she would go on and on about it, he would sit still watching her, with a amused admiration, wondering if she would feel the same way about him too.

He never tried to conquer her physically and she never thought of it, but he spoke to her about the number of women or girls he has been with and she listened in silence. She would believe anything he told her, and he had a good eye for imagination.

At times he would moodily blabber,

“you know you amuse me..you are not like other girls”

“Why?” her curiosity aroused

“I feel like you are there.. deep.. Inside your body, and I am gradually drawing you out..”

She would muse about it and  know that he is true, and wondered how he alone could do it.

She never imagined things unless he gave her an account of it, be it life, love or sex. To her he was an booklet and she drank from him, with no hesitation or blush she would stare at him wide eyed taking in everything he said and consecutively wondering how, that which he said would please someone, to her it looked gross and painful. He felt like a hero then, the amused look in her eyes would arouse him and he would continue talking to her consecutively imagining her with him.

She would ask sometimes..

“Drawing me out? Like?”

“I feel like I am delicately removing dried leaves one after the other cautiously because I know that there is something that belong to me underneath and I should be careful. Then finally there you lay bare waiting for me.. and then I would.. lift you gently cover you with my warmth and..”

She would shift uneasily and say “see a rainbow.. I wonder when it rained..!”

He would stare at her for few minutes and look away reproachfully, but soon her uneasiness would wear off and she would yearn for him to continue, but the moment would have been long gone then.

When he looked at her, she would see a war in his eyes, craving for an approving gesture in her, wondering what she would do if he made his move then. But how much ever harder she tried she could only stare back plainly at him.. He would stay silent with pain or call her by names “bitch! Liar!” and walk off.

Other times, he would ask her, what she would do if he lay down in her lap, she would say that “I will pat your face, make you sleep, play with your hands,  caress your hair.. and stroke them gently”. She could sense the impatience in him and soon those hateful words would come out. Never in those situations did he know that she only thought of those, and she couldn’t think of anything more.. or she did not know anything more.

Then painfully she would remember the last few days of their life together and the conversations. It pained her to think of those days, but nevertheless she would sit beneath her bed cross legged thinking..

“Why do you behave all, virtuous with me?” he shouted. She did not reply, but looked helplessly down at the ground.

“Tell me, don’t you want me? I know you do, as much as I want you.. but still you act.. don’t you want to hold my hands.. don’t you want my lips on yours don’t you?

She sat wondering, she did not know if she wanted him that way, she had never imagined it so.. Her silence made him furious, “you are fake..! bitch.. you act around like you are different.. but you are just fake.. and that is why no one likes you! You don’t let any one near you because you are scared that they will see-through you..”

And so he walked away from her life.. and she would sleep after those restless nights of wondering.. like she got to know the answer after all.

But then they met again, this time her life had gone through a series of fluctuations, she had been married and widowed. But her eyes remained the same, and the way she looked at him remained the same. He sat in the coffee shop hands on his head looking at her..

“Were you ever happy with .. him?”

She looked down at the coffee which was cooling down but answered..

“No.. it was a pain.. everything.. everything was a pain..”

“Do you think it would be the same with me?

“I don’t know.. I am sacred to reach the end of road with you and what if, I feel the same way with you?.. what if you feel so with me? I am scared.. ”

He knew her and understood her, he wanted her. He wanted to make her happy but did not know how.. And that injured him, they remained silent.. wondering why it never worked out between them..

{Fiction}